word | spirit | world | church
Getting your head around the sacrificial system in the Old Testament can be difficult. Here’s my attempt to briefly summarise the various sacrifices. I’ve been helped by Leithart’s summaries in In Earth as it is in Heaven in this, but I haven’t followed him entirely (mistakes mine etc!). Tribute Offering The first sacrifices we find are the minchah or… Continue reading The 7 Sacrifices of the Old Testament
There’s this strange moment in Noah’s life where he gets drunk, falls down naked, his son Ham sees him naked, and then he curses Ham. It leads to the frequent accusation that Noah was a drunkard, which at best might be true but is missing the wood for the trees. You can read the story… Continue reading What happens with Noah & Ham?
When trying to describe sin and how it lives and corrupts our hearts, people often come up with “all sin is” statements. “All sin is idolatry” is a common one. The other day I said to a friend, “all sin is taking, isn’t it.” The very next day I found myself saying to someone else, “all sin… Continue reading A Bestiary of Sin
Ok, mildly clickbait title, the more accurate question is “why has church planting slowed among the new churches, in the UK.” The majority of the church-planting movement I’m in (Commission, part of Newfrontiers) is based in India. They plant churches, despite being openly persecuted in some states, with rapidity. I’m told that around the world… Continue reading Why have we stopped planting churches?
In a previous post I quipped that the Bible was written by Jesus, to Jesus, and about Jesus. It’s a neat bit of rhetoric but needs some unpacking to communicate clearly. It’s possible to get the wrong end of this. The Bible is written by Jesus Let’s start with what I’m not saying. I am… Continue reading The Bible is by, to, and about Jesus
There’s a series of important questions around what songs you sing on a Sunday: their theology and how well it coheres with the church’s, their singability by this particular congregation, song choices that best encourage and inspire expressions of praise, and what songs fit the moment or ‘stage’ of the morning you’ve reached. I’d like… Continue reading What songs do you sing?
There’s a video of John Piper doing the rounds as I write; Piper offers some cautions for Biblical theology during a panel discussion. You can watch it here. Piper reflects on James Hamilton and others showing him connections all across the Psalter, and other parts of the Bible, that he’d never seen before. He’s delighted… Continue reading Why John Piper is (mostly) wrong on Biblical theology
I believe in eucharismatic church: word and spirit and sacrament church that takes seriously the history and theology of the church, believes in God’s action in all aspects of our gathered worship, and is devoted to reading the Bible three-dimensionally. Of course, not many—if any!—of these churches exist. I don’t lead one (yet), not least… Continue reading Eucharismatic Institutions
Just before the Hebrews cross the Jordan, Joshua sends a second round of spies into Jericho. As best we can tell they don’t discover anything useful to the disposition of the troops during the upcoming siege—particularly because that disposition involves walking around the walls of the fort while blaring loudly on ram’s horns—but they do… Continue reading Underneath the linen boughs
You are what you eat, said St Augustine. Well, he said ‘you become what you consume’ in the context of teaching on the Lord’s Supper. Nevertheless, the point is important. Consumption of the Supper has a formative effect into Christlikeness. The how and the why might be interesting, and I suspect Augustine and I part… Continue reading We become what we behold
